Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed presented her paper “A Healing African Diasporic Deconstruction of Ashkenormativity” at the American Anthropology Association Conference in New Orleans on November 20. The presentation was on the panel she also chaired, titled “Canonical Hauntings of the Body: On Harm and Healing—Knowledge Production and the Politics of Belonging.” Dr. Reed’s paper explores how the dismissal of whiteness by white presenting Ashkenazi Jewish Americans harms Jews of color and erases their experiences within the Jewish Diaspora. Through a critical inversion of the haunting paternalistic relationship between Jewish anthropologists and Blackness, she asks what Jewish Americans can learn from African Diaspora scholarship. She suggests that Jewish identity should be reconceptualized through African Diasporic notions of identity and race as a means to deconstruct Ashkenormativity and to fuel a healing critical recognition of Jewish diversity. Anthropology graduate Zacharia Arifi ’24 presented a paper on this same panel, titled “Bourdieu Awal and Me: Unraveling a Canon of Franco-Kabyle Ethnolography,” where they mediate the history of French ethnography with ethnographic fieldwork to posit how a legacy of disciplinal practice haunts ethnic identification among the French Kabyle. Particularly, they define how its corpus has codified and perpetuated hegemonic knowledge of belonging that supplant the diaspora’s autonomy in self-conceptualization. They consider, then, how its communities negotiate what it means to be Kabyle through living encounters with discursive expression. Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson served as the discussant for this panel. The conference program can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed presented a talk, titled “Oral History as Liberation,” at the Universities Studying Slavery Consortium’s Fall Conference, “Second Foundings: Universities, Slavery, and Struggles for Justice in Texas and Beyond,” at Rice University in Houston on Saturday, October 11. She discussed the Southwestern University Racial History Project’s oral history collection and the critical methodology used to gather, preserve, and exhibit stories of alumni of color. Her talk featured an excerpt of the oral history of Eva Mendiola ’75 that was recorded by SCOPE 2022 student Kalista Esquivel ’26 as well as a clip of the forthcoming documentary that she created with Esquivel and SURF 2025 student Mia Santoscoy ’26 about Mendiola’s journey to founding women’s sports at SU. The conference program can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed organized and supported the submission, reception, and presentation of the panel “Salons, Skateboarding, and Tabletop Gaming: Stories of ‘Alternative’ Intersectional Gender Expression in Recreational Communities,” presented on April 4 at the 2025 Southwestern Anthropology Association Conference in Pomona, CA. During this panel, anthropology and classics double major Marley Sensenderfer ’25 chaired the session and presented the paper talk “Roll for Stereotypes: D&D and Gender Performativity Tabletop role-playing games,” anthropology major Emma French ’25 presented the paper talk “Gender and Skateboarding Culture,” and anthropology and environmental studies double major Rose Reed ’25 presented the paper talk “White Beauty Standards in a Hair and Nail Salon.” This panel was a collaboration of three student anthropology capstone research projects that deconstruct intersectional manifestations of gender in public space via insider (or native) ethnographic analysis. More information on the session and the conference can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed organized a panel titled “Blackness and Whiteness in the Americas: Race Across Space and Time” for the American Anthropological Association’s 2024 annual meeting in Tampa, FL on November 21. Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson served as the chair for the panel. During this session, Dr. Reed presented the paper “Black Surrogacy and the Sugar Land 95: How White Officials in Sugar Land, Texas use Black Subjectivity to Fabricate a Social Justice Image,” Dr. Johnson presented the paper “Emerging Racial Categories and their Socio-ecological Context on the British Coast of Central America in the Late 1700s,” and undergraduate honors anthropology student Constanza Cameron ’24 presented the paper “Chilean Whiteness: Affective Dispositions Regarding Race and Class.” Alumnus Zacharia Arifi ’24 presented the poster presentation “1760 Hors Place: Discursive Identity Formation of the Franco-Kabyle Diaspora and the PostKabyle” as well. Abstracts of the panel, the papers, and the poster can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed (panel organizer) and Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson (panel chair), along with two SCOPE undergraduate students, Rose Reed ’25 and Kalista Esquivel ’26, presented their panel “Unsilencing the Past: How Oral Histories Give Voice to Black and Latinx Students at Southwestern University” on April 18 at the Southwestern Social Science Association Conference in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Johnson discussed the foundational history of the University and the founding of The SU Racial History Project. Dr. Reed discussed the liberatory potential of oral histories and why this particular method is key to unsilencing the voices of the oppressed at a predominantly white institution. Rose presented the oral history of Lynette Philips, a Black woman who attended Southwestern University between 1980-1984, played basketball for the university, and was very active on campus. Kalista presented the oral history of Eva Mendiola, a Mexican-American woman who attended Southwestern University from 1972-1975 and founded the volleyball team, which was the first women’s sports team on campus. Future plans include submitting these student papers to a special issue of an oral history journal. The conference program can be viewed here.